Title: like some wild thing
Disclaimer: I don't own ATLA.
Pairings: Urzai, Ursa/Ikem.
Summary: Night after night, she lies alone in her bower, watching the threads of her life unravel.
The girl Ursa dreams of slow walks by the pier, Ikem by her side, both aglow in the light of love's keen fire and the magnetic flush of the violet hour.
At seventeen, she thinks she knows the scheme of her life: first, the strict instruction by her father; second, the lore of herbs handed down from her mother; third, a lifetime of contentment with Ikem.
In the night, in those sweet moments of drowsiness between wakefulness and sleep, she sees her life pass before her: tender and chaste kisses stolen in the spaces of a few heartbeats, when their parents are not looking; and the pitter-patter of tiny feet along spick and span hallways.
:::
Ursa wonders not about the world beyond Hira'a. The sleepy village is all she knows, all she has known, the safe cradle of her birth and life and blossoming womanhood.
That her grandfather was the illustrious Avatar Roku is a fact she well knows. And she knows too of the disgrace he has brought to his descendants, this traitorous son of the glorious Fire Nation who chose not to aid his friend and lord, and who was reduced to ashes and dust by the caprices of Sozin himself.
You'll never find a husband, some unkind girls at school had said. You'll only tarnish his family name. Thankfully, Ikem cares not for such matters. For them, life is simple. They love each other, and that is that.
And yet Ursa cannot help wondering, when the curtains of night close in, what her life might have been, if she were not the granddaughter of Avatar Roku, may we spit on his name.
:::
At twenty-one, Ursa's world shatters.
Newly engaged, ripe with happiness and contentment, she rushed home to a crying mother and a grave father. Then she sees Fire Lord Azulon and Prince Ozai in the guest room, and she falls to her knees and curtsies. She hopes she bent her knees just right, placed her hands in the correct position to show proper homage to her king.
"What a beautiful young lady," Azulon murmurs, his voice deep and strong. A voice befitting his throne.
For the first time, Ursa looks up into Azulon's face. His eyes are as molten lava, a maelstrom of pure power and authority, and she feels her knees turn to dust beneath her. She is a skeleton of putrid bones, tossed asunder on the cruel wind, and before her the thunder god swings his anvil and deafens her with the terrible ring of his fury.
"The Fire Sages have given me a prophecy," Azulon says. "A strong line of rulers shall come forth from the union of my line and Avatar Roku's line."
Ursa watches her father's fingers twitch along the edges of the table. In the half-light, he looks old, his hair greying, his beard streaked with tendrils of white. He is old, she senses, and powerless, and unable to protect his beloved daughter.
"So you see I am here," Azulon says. He looks at her, and she sees fire and ruin in those deep-set, cruel eyes.
Ursa waits for the catch.
Azulon waits for a minute before he says the words he has come to say. "My fair lady Ursa, I have come to propose a matrimonial union between your virtuous self and my second son, Prince Ozai."
The words are as a dagger to her heart. Ursa looks away, tears gathering in her eyes, her throat closing in on itself. There is a fire coursing through her blood – or perhaps it is ice – and she feels the noose tighten around her neck.
"Well?" Azulon says. "What say you? Your parents have no objections, and so all that is left is your choice."
Ursa makes her choice. She is nothing if not a pragmatist. There is Ikem, and there is her newfound happiness, but she hardens her heart and steels her resolve and opens her rosebud mouth. "I am honoured, my lord. Your kindness and grace have lifted my family beyond words."
"Very well," Azulon said. He smiles, and it is not a kind one. "We will have to leave now for the capital."
Ursa packs her few possessions. There is only a pain in her heart now, and an abyss of emptiness.
That night, she dreams of fire unending and a city burning. She dreams of children crying and a world going up in smoke.
:::
At first, Ursa puts away her sorrow, locks it away deep in her heart. She tries to love Ozai, and almost succeeds. After all, he is tall and handsome, and knows enough poetry to charm any noblewoman into his bed (he does that sometimes, when he thinks Ursa isn't looking).
But there is something about Ozai which puts her off loving him. There is something hard in the prince's nature, something wholly foreign to her. There is a strange malignance that grows within him, taking root in his desire for power and his sense of inferiority to Prince Iroh.
There is something rotten at his core, like an apple left in cellars through the throes of a hard winter. Ursa glimpses the decay, and shrinks away from the prince.
:::
Ursa wanders through the maze that is the Fire Nation court, pale and graceful and queenly.
She whips her scented fans and nods to the noble ladies who twitter like birds, draped in silk and brocade. She wonders if this is everything in store for her: a lifetime of fluttering her embroidered fan, a lifetime of taking tea with the noble ladies of the court, who speak of nothing but who wore what and who walked with whom, a lifetime of hope lost and never resurrected.
In the tender embrace of night, she takes comfort in her children, and tries not to feel bitter.
:::
Ozai no longer stays the night in Ursa's bed, and for that she is entirely grateful. She is growing to detest him.
She is growing to detest the palace, where generations of bloodthirsty monarchs grown cruel through years of prosperity have lived and ruled with an iron fist. She can feel the weight of their ancient disregard in the ornate furnishing. The ghosts of the past thread their spidery fingers into her hair, and dark shadows tread through her dreams, trailing spite and disapproval.
Nearly every night she wakes in sweat, laughter ringing in her ears, fear coursing through her blood. The nightmares come quick and furious now. Even Ozai's absence doesn't bring her much cheer.
:::
Life in the Fire Palace grows more and more tedious. Ursa finds it hard to get through the days. The weight of the golden flame nestled in her hair puts knots into her neck. She imagines swimming upriver against a strong current. Surely even that would be easier.
She has no reason to doubt that she will one day, sooner rather than later, die of heartbreak and heartache, like a caged bird left to whither in shadows until it sings no more.
Awaking from the haze of sleep, even her bower seems to have shrunk during the hours of night. The walls close in on her, and she aches from the memory of the wind in her hair and twinkling stars overhead, the scent of the sea fresh in the air, and Ikem's mouth against her ear.
As always, when the sun spirals across the horizon, Ursa turns from the nightmares, dusts the shadows from her hair, and wipes the tears from her eyes. There is a palace to manage, after all, and children to supervise, and nobles to entertain.
(All things she has never wanted.)
And yet, when night comes again, and she lies alone in her bower, watching the threads of her life unravel, she wonders what a lifetime with Ikem would have been like. She thinks of Hira'a and red sunsets and warm caresses, and sighs, and soon these fade into nightmares.
:::
When Ursa leaves the palace for the last time, she looks back and kisses her hands to her sleeping children.
It pains her to leave Zuko and Azula, and yet – for the first time in over a decade, she finally feels free.
A/N (28.07.16): I was inspired to write this by a passage in Tolkien's LOTR (The Return of the King) - namely, where Eowyn was thus described: "But who knows what she spoke to the darkness, alone, in the bitter watches of the night, when all her life seemed shrinking, and the walls of her bower closing in about her, a hutch to trammel some wild thing in?"
Then I thought of Ursa and how miserable she would have been with Ozai. Well - the idea / inspiration came easily. The execution was harder; I feel that this piece doesn't really do the inspiration justice.
It's been nearly five years since I last wrote Urzai, so hopefully they're not too OOC. Concrit would be welcome, but if not, thanks for reading, anyway.